HP Omen 16 Gaming Performance Review

In this gaming laptop performance review, we're going to be taking a look at the 2022 HP Omen 16, which features a Ryzen 7 6800H and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU. We'll be going through the laptop's synthetic and real-world gaming performance, its processor performance, and also taking a look at its display and thermal performance. But first, let's take a closer look at the specs.

HP Omen 16 2022 specs at a glance

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 6800H
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU
VRAM: 8GB, TGP: 115W
Display: 16.1-inch, QHD (2560x1440), 165Hz
RAM: 16GB DDR5-4800
Storage: 1 TB NVMe M.2 SSD

As you can see, the 2022 HP Omen 16 features great specs on paper, and if you consider the price of this laptop right now, at around Rs 1.25 lacs, it certainly looks like a great deal. If you're wondering whether those specs actually translate to good performance, don't worry, we've got you covered. Here's a breakdown of the performance of the 2022 HP Omen 16.

HP Omen 16 2022 Performance

The HP Omen 16 features a combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H and the NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti. Let's start things off with synthetic gaming performance. For this performance review, we'll compare RTX 3070 Ti in the HP Omen 16 to a more recent RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, which would fall around the same price range.

In synthetic benchmarks, you can see that the scores between the RTX 3070 Ti on the HP Omen 16 and the RTX 4060 Laptop GPU are very close. The drop in the price of RTX 3070 Ti laptops is largely due to how well the RTX 4060 performs. The RTX 3070 Ti provides slightly better DirectX 11 performance, while the RTX 4060 has slightly better DirectX 12 performance. But both are very close in performance.

With that, we come to real-world gaming performance. While the difference in synthetic benchmarks might have been small. It's a different story with real-world gaming. The RTX 4060 easily outperforms the RTX 3070 Ti in the HP Omen 16 across the board in all titles. This is consistent in both high and medium presets. The HP Omen 16 still easily gives us above 60 FPS in all titles at high settings. You can comfortably game in QHD resolution as well for older titles. However, since both laptop GPU options are similarly priced, we're leaning heavily towards the RTX 4060 Laptop GPU here.

With that, we come to processor performance. We use the PCMark 10 benchmark to test overall productivity, followed by the Cinebench R20 and R23 benchmarks to test single-thread and multi-thread performance. Here, we're comparing the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H with the  11th gen Intel Core i7-11800H. The Ryzen 7 6800H was released about half a year after the 11800H but both are very similar in performance.

As you can see, the scores are nearly identical with the difference being a few points. While old, both the Ryzen 7 and the Core i7-11800H are top-end processors and as such have better multiprocessing performance than weaker variants of current-gen processors (Because they have more cores). So while you will get better single-thread performance on a 12th or 13th gen Intel Core i5, these processors will still give you better multicore performance. At least in terms of synthetic benchmarks.

HP Omen 16 2022 Display

The HP Omen 16 features a 16.1-inch QHD or 2560x1440p resolution display with a refresh rate of 165 Hz. During our testing, we got an sRGB coverage of 96 percent and a DCI-P3 coverage of 70.6 percent. With its resolution and colour accuracy, this is an excellent laptop for content creation as well. However, the display only has a peak brightness of 300 nits. We tested around 280 nits of peak brightness. That's a bit on the lower end and we would have preferred to see a brighter display. But the rest is great.

HP Omen 16 2022 Thermal performance

There’s no sugarcoating it, the HP Omen 16 2022 struggles with thermal performance. The laptop surface temps get pretty high. The centre of the keyboard recorded as high as 46 degrees Celsius, which can be quite uncomfortable. Even the WASD keys get pretty hot, going as high as 42 degrees when under stress. You will certainly feel the heat when your gaming sessions go long. We test laptops in an air-conditioned environment, so the laptop might run even hotter when used outside of one, so keep that in mind.

HP Omen 16 2022 Verdict

The HP Omen 16 2022 is certainly an enticing offer if you consider the specs on board and the current price of Rs 1,26,000. However, you can pick up an RTX 4060 laptop at similar or even lower prices, which will give you better gaming performance. Other than that, the high surface temps are also concerning. All that said, the RTX 3070 Ti is still a great GPU and you should have no trouble playing the latest AAA games at high settings in FHD resolutions. You might not be able to game at QHD resolutions despite the laptop offering a QHD display. Speaking of which, even though it’s not too bright, the display is also great, and it’s very colour accurate. And there you have our performance review and pros and cons for the HP Omen 16 2022.